


Unspoken

by flecksofpoppy



Series: Poppy's Adventures in Night Ficcing [31]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8180102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: Levi knows that favors are a dirty word, but that admiration is not synonymous with guilt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another "it's the middle of the night and I feel like writing" night ficcing ficlet. :D Thanks to Birbwin for the prompt.
> 
> Prompt was: Hit me up with some fluffy canon eruris

Levi doesn’t accept favors; they feel like a debt, and he’d rather fight for survival than accept charity.

It’s when Erwin first informs him after he’s appointed as Captain that he has to attend a gala. He’s also informed, with all the formality of an official military order that he’s still getting used to at the time, that there is a dress code.

He reviles the first time he has to stand in place and be fitted for a suit, poked and prodded by a tailor as Commander Erwin Smith’s personal coin purse funds the endeavor; paychecks are sluggish in the Corps.

There are people in the capital that have heard of him already, after word got around from gossips and admirers about what happened on the expedition that led to the death of Isabel and Farlan.

Nonetheless, he becomes an object of fascination. Thankfully, the tailor—one that Erwin’s father went to, and now that Erwin goes to—never says a word, never asks Levi any unnecessary questions in all the subsequent years they know each other.

Being measured reminds Levi of holding up leather straps against Isabel’s legs, hips, shoulders the first time they put it on. The gear fit her without even needing to be altered, as if she had been made for it—maybe she had, given her love of flight.

The suit for the gala fits beautifully and the event is a success, though he hates every minute of it. He goes to a few galas over the years, his suit adjusted each time.

Levi doesn’t accept favors, but he also doesn’t accept flattery; in fact, he despises it.

Erwin doesn’t compliment him openly—at least not in front of people—but at some point he does tell Levi the suit looks flattering on him and expresses the hope that it’s satisfactory.

_“It’s over the top.”_

_Erwin had just smiled slightly. “Distractions in the ballroom are more effective than flares on the battlefield at times.”_

*

Levi knows that favors are a dirty word, but that admiration is not synonymous with guilt.

Erwin holds him in high regard, says as much frequently, and Levi slowly begins to believe him amidst the galas and suit alterations.

This is how Levi learns to be soft and fill the seams of his custom fitted garment without a struggle, to settle into sumptuous fabric paid for by someone else that he owes nothing. 

He commits to his own softness a bit later once he’s in Erwin’s bed; he learns quickly that there is something terrifying about how effortless it seems for Erwin to be kind as tea is set down for him every morning.

But it is when the suit is twisted on the bed like a discarded skin that Levi understands that Erwin is equally wary of favors when he whispers one evening as they grind against one another lazily, _“I prefer you naked.”_

Levi’s first instinct is to take offense; the second, however, is to fight down the absurd small smile that twitches at his lips when he meets Erwin’s eyes 

He is no longer stitched together by pity or debt, but reassembled by choice—the choice to linger on the fact of how blue Erwin’s eyes are in the morning, the opportunity to leave tea on the night table just before he wakes up, to witness the mechanics of a man holding the whole of humanity’s future in his hands.

None of this is ever expressed in words. 

Instead, Erwin leans across the bed to meet Levi’s quiet kisses, tasting of tea and warmth, smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://flecksofpoppy.tumblr.com/). :D


End file.
